The Gardening information Kit was created due to a need for information while in the garden without reading volumes of reference material or bringing these books into the garden.
The home gardener grows many different plants and vegetables all with different protection, spacing and care needs. It is difficult if not impossible to commit all this information to memory. Therefore, the gardener will probably have to refer to his reference material. Some gardeners only have seed packets, some have an extensive library. Most of the seed packets do not provide the appropriate information needed for the many tasks to complete harvest. It is difficult to bring these reference books into the garden without some damage. After the gardener reads his reference material, how does he easily bring this information into the garden. Many questions go unanswered.
When to plant is probably one of the most important questions that a gardener asks. Most gardeners try to push the season and plant as early as possible. If the gardener plants frost sensitive vegetables too early, destruction of the crop will be the result. He must know what to plant and when. A tool was needed that could give him the correct information about when to plant for any latitude in the country or internationally, be user friendly and at the same time provide a calendar.
There has been a recent increase in public awareness of the health benefits of organic gardening, especially vegetable gardening (defined as gardening without the use of petro-chemically based herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and fertilizers that have been associated with the causes of many health problems including cancer). The organic method biologically enhances the soil, avoids pollution and creates an environment which is healthy for the gardener and his family. The awareness level of protecting us from the use of dangerous pesticides has even reached the petro-chemical industry. Even Ortho, a subsidiary of Cheveron, now producing a line of organic products. It certainly means that there is a base of consumers who prefer the organic to the petro-chemical products.
Many people subscribe to the use of organic gardening techniques in home vegetable gardening. However, many people who try home vegetable gardening, especially first timers, are not sufficiently experienced and have not been exposed to the methods that are actually simple. There is also a preconceived notion that organic gardening methods are difficult and result in poor quality produce. Most gardeners are not aware that there are easy alternatives to the petro-chemical industry's herbicides, fungicides and pesticides. In fact most garden pests can be managed by natural, barrier, botanical and biologically commercially available products. There have been many books written on the subject of gardening, but few on organic gardening as compared to the plethora of information available. Education is needed in order to change over to organic gardening. This can be a deterrent to practicing organic gardening.
Some of the more important questions that concern gardeners are, ie.: which vegetables are prone to be killed by the frost, which can be planted for Fall harvest, or which need to be started indoors. The ability of this kit to sort the data cards without reading each individual card to answer these kinds of questions is invaluable. A kit was needed that could sort out specific questions and pieces of information.
The summary of the above problems are as follows: how does one summarize and transfer the information with an organic orientation, how does one avoid bringing books into the garden, how does one manipulate planting dates for the gardener's specific locale, how does one sort information quickly and how does one minimize the waisting of time. The Gardening information Kit solves these problems with its two components.
The kit combines 2 elements which serve different functions yet when combined together they create a complete source of information for every aspect of growing the target vegetable or plant including dates and the hows of germination, starting seedlings indoors, transplanting, planting, watering, spraying, harvesting and storage.
1. It summarizes information concerning each vegetable as completely and as clearly as possible, free from clutter and in a form which the gardener can use effortlessly.
2. It gives the home gardener the ability to have a user friendly sorting system similar to a data base at his fingertips right i the garden. In the present embodiment there are 44 specific pieces of information available, presented on the vertical sides, but not limited to, of a standard sized paper, for example. Categories for the storing stations are determined by the subject matter of the kit, ie. vegetables or perrenial flowers.
3. The circular calendar calculator gives the gardener the ability to manipulate specific dates for his specific locale and for specific vegetables and/or plants. It can be used to determine when to start seedlings, when to plant directly into the garden, when to transplant seedlings, when to discontinue planting, when is the expected harvest date, and to determine if there is enough time for another crop before Fall frost. This is all executed by gardeners anywhere in the country. The only piece of information that the gardener needs to provide are the dates of the first and last frost.
4. It addresses the principal aims of organic agriculture as adopted by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,316,668, issued to Rogers on May 2, 1967, disclosed an adjustable garden chart which is a device for correlating information recorded on a plurality of indicia bearing strips. Although Rogers' design allows one to retrieve information regarding the growing of certain crops, He uses strips and reels which can be moved together or independently. His device could also be applied to finding the constellations int he various skies throughout the year.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,458, issued to Brody on Feb. 3, 1981, is a device used in the field of horse racing. Its object is to randomly select the horses for Win, Place, Show, Daily Double, Quinella, Perfecta, and/or Trifecta without the seu of publications and authoritative sources. This device uses three concentric circles with indicia; however, it also contains a face plate with "equicircumferentially distributed presentation openings" for the above betting selections and also contains a bottom cover for a total of five wheels. The indicia which can be seen thru the face plate openings are only used after the three wheels have been arbitrarily moved by manipulating them on the reverse side. It is then that the bettor turns this device to the obverse side to reveal the numbers of the individual participants. The information indicia contained in the embodiment of the circular calendar calculator responds to the specific problem of planting dates (from the earliest planting date to discontinuation). Not only does this kit manipulate multiple indicia, but unlike Brody, it acts as an informational source. Six distinct items can be determined by the circular calendar calculator unlike Brody's which only reveal one, the numbers of participants matched with the type of betting possibilities.